Survival and Risk of Recurrence After Treatment

Treatment type and breast cancer survival

One major decision you may face with early breast cancer is whether to have a lumpectomy (also called breast conserving surgery) plus radiation therapy or a mastectomy. They are equally effective in treating early breast cancer.

Overall survival is the same for lumpectomy plus radiation therapy versus mastectomy.

This means both treatments lower the risk of dying (from breast cancer or other cause) by the same amount.

Mastectomy and local recurrence

With mastectomy, the best predictor of local recurrence is whether the lymph nodes in the underarm area contain cancer.

The more lymph nodes with cancer, the higher the risk of recurrence tends to be [112].

When the lymph nodes do not contain cancer, the chance of local recurrence in 5 years is about 6 percent [112].

When there is cancer in the lymph nodes, the chance of local recurrence in 5 years is about 23 percent without radiation therapy following mastectomy [112]. Radiation therapy can reduce this risk to about 6 percent [112].